Following straight on from Debt of Honor, Executive Orders opens with the Capitol Building all but wreckage following a hijacked Boeing 747 flying into it at the conclusion of the brief conflict between the United States and Japan. The culprit, a disaffected Japanese pilot who, it is later discovered, murdered his co-pilot and, on a dodgy flight plan, took out a large chunk of the United States government, including President Roger Durling and his wife.
That leaves John Patrick Ryan, recently-sworn in as Vice President, suddenly in charge of the country. It is not an easy task, particuarly for someone who is not a politician. Indeed, Ryan makes that clear nearly every second page, telling one of his confidants that he isn't enjoying the job, or he doesn't want to be in the White House. For mine, Clancy overplayed that hand in illustrating the difference between President Ryan and those who had gone before him.
Right from the outset, there are problems. The disgraced former Vice President Edward Kealty re-enters the race, claiming that he never truly resigned, and challenges Ryan's place as President. Only through an illegal act, destroying a letter where Kealty's resignation is made clear. Dealing with that on one hand, Ryan must put together a shattered country and mend fences with Japan, whilst trying to get his head around all things presidential. Kealty gets hold of leaked intelligence about some of Ryan's earlier coups - Red October, amongst others - and convinces two television journalists to run with it, another part of his campaign to discredit the current president.
At the same time, further afield, a plan is being hatched by Ayatollah Mahmoud Haji Daryaei. An Iranian agent assassinates the Iraqi president, allowing Iran and Iraq to come together as the United Islamic Republic (UIR), whose goal is to take control of the Middle East. Whilst UIR allies China and India do their best to keep America's focus elsewhere, Daryaei's cronies unleash an engineered strand of Ebola on the American population, his men attempt to kidnap Ryan's youngest daughter, Katie, from her childcare centre - this attempt is foiled by an FBI agent in the right place at the right time - as the Kealty challenge burns itself out.
Finally, Daryaei activates an agent within the United States Secret Service to try and kill Ryan himself. This plan, however, is foiled by Clancy favourites Dan Murray and the Foley's, Ed and Mary Pat, amongst others. Robby Jackson, Sergey Golokov, John Clark and Domingo 'Ding' Chavez also have prominent roles in this most ambitious of all Tom Clancy works. Reading pages with their names on them is like catching up with old friends.
In Executive Orders, all roads lead to the Middle East. With some assistance from the Russians, Clark and Chavez, track down the origin of the Ebola plague as American forces rush to the Middle East to stand alongside the Saudi Arabians against the UIR's 'Army of God'. The UIR forces are badly beaten by superior American technology, as the Ebola plague dies out at home, and President Ryan elects to end the war. But not before a laser-guided missile is directed in on the home of Daryaei by Clark and Chavez, on the ground in Tehran. During the last chapter, President Ryan indicates that he will nominate for re-election.
Don't get me wrong, this is a good book, but it could have been better, and it could have been shorter. Clancy's considerable attention to every small detail, especially with military hardware, is sometimes enough to make me put down the book or skip great chunks. Most people don't need quite that much information - it's not a textbook after all, but a thriller/spy novel. The book could've been 200 pages shorter.
The opening two thirds seem to move quite slowly, with everything coming to a rather quick end in the final stanza. I, for one, think that Clancy's best work is writing spy and military thrillers. This stab at writing a politics-based novel - with the usual hallmarks of a Clancy novel, namely spy craft and military operations, almost taking a back seat - didn't grab me like some of his other work has. The premise was a good one, but the book didn't quite live up to my expectations. I liked Rainbow Six more than Executive Orders.
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